Cutting machines provided with rotary cutting wheels are commonly used for cutting flexible materials in the form of a single ply or of a small lay-up of plies. Such machines are described in particular in patents FR 2,582,564, FR 2,582,247, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,776,072, and each such machine includes a table-top provided with a support surface for supporting the flexible material, and a cutting head provided with a cutting wheel, with a drive motor for rotating said cutting wheel, and with means for sequentially sharpening said cutting wheel. Furthermore, horizontal drive means are adapted so as to displace the cutting head horizontally above the table-top along two orthogonal displacement axes, and rotary drive means are adapted so as to rotate said head around a vertical tangential servo-control axis.
Moreover, such cutting machines are provided with means for holding the flexible material on the support table-top in a fixed position during the entire cutting process. Such holding means conventionally comprise a support surface constituted by a bristle bed provided with a large number of vertical air-flow passages, and suction means adapted so as to create suction that holds the flexible material against the support surface.
Although such means are entirely satisfactory with respect to holding the flexible material while it is being cut, they suffer from two major drawbacks. Firstly, it is necessary to provide each cutting machine with a specific support surface, and in particular with suction means, which both increase the cost of such machines, and also have non-negligible operating costs with respect to energy consumption. Secondly, holding the material by suction makes it necessary to interpose both a perforated sheet between the support surface and the flexible material so that flexible material is not sucked in, and also another sheet on top of the flexible material so as to provide air-tightness. These sheets, which are unavoidably cut up at the same time as the flexible material, must be replaced after each cutting operation, and they therefore constitute consumables whose cost is non-negligible.